Aruna Roy meets Anna Hazare at Ramlila Maidan

NEW DELHI: NAC member Aruna Roy, who had criticised Anna Hazare's protest on Lokpal Bill, today met the Gandhian at Ramlila Maidan where he is on an indefinite fast.

Roy and her associates met Hazare at Ramlila Maidan here this morning, a day after Team Anna and government initiated talks to break the deadlock over Lokpal Bill.

"We are concerned about Anna. We have old links with him," Roy told reporters here.

Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan said Roy is a well-wisher of Hazare and had come to meet him.

This is Roy's first meeting with Hazare after the Gandhian began his indefinite fast.

Last Saturday, Roy had criticised Hazare for "deriding" democratic institutions and alleged that he was "ill-advised".

Referring to Hazare camp's assertion that sending the government Lokpal bill to Standing Committee as a waste of time, Roy had said such committees are an important institution and one should use it as much as possible.

In an apparent reference to Hazare setting a deadline to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill, she had said, "I think Annaji is ill-advised...any who says my view should be the only view is wrong."

The National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI), with which Roy is associated, has prepared a version of Lokpal Bill and presented it before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice and Personnel.